“Yeah, I do. You have to trust me, Birdy.”
Hearing his nickname for me again, my façade cracked a little. I closed my lids, my lashes wet on my cheeks. He tried to pretend he didn’t care, but he did. He hadn’t forgotten. “I can’t live like this,” I said. “Knowing what I did. That you’re mad. That you blame me.”
“I don’t blame you.”
I blinked away the threat of tears. “Then why didn’t you answer my letters? Why couldn’t I visit you?”
“Lake—”
“You could’ve called or written to tell me you were okay. I thought about you every day.”
“Christ, Lake.” He ran a hand through his inky hair, and it stuck up, slowly easing back into place. “Don’t tell me that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want you thinking about what-if or why this, why that. It’s just the way it is.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Doesn’t it?” he asked.
It was all he needed to say. What were our options? I was still seventeen, and he’d always be seven years older. He lived with my sister. My father hated him and would never let me be with him while I lived at home.
I launched forward, throwing my arms around his middle. He didn’t hug me back, but his smoky scent calmed me even more than the new t-shirt smell underneath it. This was exactly where I wanted to be. “I have to know what it was like in there. I can’t stop thinking about it. I tried to get in to see you. I borrowed my friend’s car and lied about where I was going. I checked out books from the library—”
“Lake, stop. Just stop.” His torso expanded with an inhale, and his voice wavered. “Please stop. You don’t know what it’s like . . . and you’re . . .” He pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed out what sounded like, “fucking killing me.”
“I missed you so much.” I hugged him more tightly, hoping to wake him up, make him stop pretending this didn’t affect him. “I still do.”
He put a big hand on my forearm, a touch that put all my hairs on end, and turned it up a little. He ran a fingertip over my small scar. It was dark, but he looked almost longingly at it. “You miss the man I used to be.”
“That’s not true.”
“This is too hard. You gotta understand.”
I wanted him to slide his hand up, cup my face, and show me he’d missed me. Instead, he pried my arms from his middle. “Not yet,” I begged.
“Lake, it’s too dangerous.”
I shoved him away, but he was so solid, I was the one who stumbled back. “It’s always too dangerous with you. Everything.” I curled my toes into the damp grass. “If it were up to you, I’d live in a padded room without access to anything.”
“Maybe,” he said. I thought I detected a small, almost imperceptible smile, but it was quickly replaced with a scowl. “And I don’t want you dressing that way. Earlier.”
The cut-off skirt and tiny top both thrilled and embarrassed me. Dad had made me feel like a prostitute, but the heated look in Manning’s eyes was the only thing that made sense to me in all of this. He still wanted me, and not just a little. “It seemed like you liked it,” I said lightly.
He wiped his temple with his sleeve despite the temperate night, then took a step back. “What would make you think that?”
For the first time in a while, I read his body language clearly. The outfit made him uncomfortable. In the house, he couldn’t take his eyes off it. A minute ago, it’d made him angry. Now, he was looking toward the house, scratching under his collar. All that because of a short skirt and heels. I shrugged. “I guess it was the face you made.”
“I didn’t make any face.” He backed away a little more but didn’t try to leave.
“What didn’t you like about it?” I asked. “Was it the skirt? Was it too short?”
“I . . . it . . .”
I leaned in a little. “What?”
“Never mind. Just don’t dress like that.”
“How am I supposed to know what you mean if you won’t tell me what you didn’t like?”
His demeanor shifted. With the set of his jaw came the same white-hot glare from earlier. It could’ve been passion as easily as it could’ve been hate. I was upsetting him, but I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. “I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” He spoke slowly. “I said I didn’t want it.”
“Doesn’t it matter what I want?”
“No.”
And wasn’t that the truth? It was a good thing I wanted to go to USC, because it wasn’t like I had a choice. Dad would’ve made sure of it, just like Manning made sure I kept my mouth shut about his case, dressed like a pre-teen, and stayed away from him. I had no input about anything, and I was beginning to wonder if eighteen was just another number or if it’d actually mean a shift into adulthood. “I’m not sixteen anymore, Manning. I don’t even feel sixteen. You got older in there, and so did I.”
“Yeah? Did you?” he asked. I couldn’t tell if he was joking, and for a blissful moment, we’d turned back time. The weeks before his arrest, I’d lived for those moments when he’d teased me in his own subtle way. “Tell me, what’d you do while I was away? How’d you spend your days?”
“I told you everything in my letters.”
He frowned a little. “I want to hear it from you.”
“I ran a lot,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
There came a certain kind of peace once I pushed past the pain, the wheezing, the sweating. I had yet to find anything else that had gotten me there—except maybe the beer and joint I’d had with Corbin. “It helped.”
Closing his eyes, he said, “Me too.”
“You run?” I asked, straightening my back. We could run together, me and him, it could be our thing. He couldn’t say no to it, because it was something innocent and good.
But then he blinked a few times. “Nah. I mean physical activity. Labor. It helped me, too.”
“Oh. What else did you do? What else helped?”
He shook his head and trailed his eyes down my arm. “How’d you get the scar?”
“You know how.”
“No, I don’t, because I didn’t read your letters.”
My heart fell. “You never got them?”
“I got them. I just didn’t read them.”
Of all the scenarios I’d considered, that wasn’t one of them, especially since I’d have done anything to read even one letter from Manning while he’d been away. I’d spent hours of my life writing them, one of the only things outside of running that’d kept me sane. “Not even one?”
“You wasted your time.”
“Maybe I did,” I said, “but time never feels wasted on you.”
He swallowed, turning his face up to the sky. I loved when he did that, not just because the stars were ours, but because he exposed his strong, veiny throat to me. It made him, a man with callused palms and overpowering strength, seem vulnerable. “It was too hard.” He spoke quietly. Maybe it was easier for him to say when he didn’t have to look at me. “I wanted to, but I couldn’t.”
Though it hurt that he hadn’t read them, I understood. If he’d ever written me back, a letter from him would’ve been salt in my open wounds. A sting I would’ve welcomed, but painful nonetheless.
I wanted to look at the stars with him, but not as much as I just wanted to soak him in. Still studying him like he might disappear at any moment, I asked, “What’s up there?”
“Doesn’t matter. I saw the night sky once the whole time I was in there.” He inhaled through his nose. “It was only for a second, but you know what I saw?”
My heart skipped. Summer Triangle.
“Ursa Major,” he said. He took a breath and looked back at me. “What gave you that scar?”
There was only one answer to that question. “A great bear.” My great bear.
“Manning,” Tiffany called from the house. “You out here, babe?”
He wet his lips. “Be right in.”
He stepped back once then again. I put my fingers to my chin, attempting to hold on to the ghost of his touch. His eyes went to my mood ring. If he was shocked, he didn’t show it, just looked at it for a long minute.
Then he turned and stalked back to the house. Back to Tiffany.
10
Manning
Starved. Even after a full steak dinner, that’s what I was. I hadn’t eaten nearly as much as I’d planned. I’d have to work my appetite back to where it’d been.
I drove Tiffany back to the apartment, taking in everything through the windshield. The one time I’d been outside in the past year and a half, it’d been because of a fire in one of the dorms. They’d handcuffed all the inmates on my floor with one chain and walked us out to a van to transfer us to a secure spot until it was taken care of. In solitary, I’d had a nightmare or two about being locked in a cell while the building burned around me.
Just thinking about it now, I got hot. Tiffany’s car was too fucking small. My knees were nearly at my chin. I’d rolled down the window before I’d even pulled away from the curb, but it wasn’t enough, so I played with a few buttons to get the sunroof open.
“Want me to do it?” she asked.
“No.” Eventually, it slid open. The night was cold, and Tiffany pulled her sweater closer, but I couldn’t help it. I needed the air.
I’d made a mistake putting off sex with Tiffany. I’d known it as soon as I’d stepped into the Kaplan’s home. Lake had come running down the stairs, her skirt practically up to her crotch. I’d taken one look at her long, tan legs and gotten hard on the spot. I’d had to refrain from chasing her back up the stairs, into her bedroom, and locking out the world for a few days.
If Charles hadn’t sent her back to her to change, I would’ve. The outfit was too much. She didn’t know she was tempting a dangerous man, and if she did, she wasn’t as smart as everyone gave her credit for. Did you put a juicy, bloody steak in front of a caged animal and expect him not to break through the bars?
As soon as I parked, I remembered what I’d forgotten at Target. “Fuck.”
Tiffany eyes sliced to mine. “What? What’s wrong?”
“I meant to stop and get some things.”
“What things?” she asked.
“Condoms.”
“Oh. Don’t worry. I’ve got it covered.” She opened the car door, smiling at her pun.
I shut off the engine and followed her through the complex. The apartment keys were on the BMW’s keychain, so I unlocked the front door. “Wait here,” I said.
“Why?”
Walking into a dark apartment, I tensed. The quiet made my stomach hurt. I flipped on some lights, looking around.
Tiffany clomped in behind me, kicking off her shoes next to the couch. “It’s a really safe neighborhood,” she said.
I wiped my hands on my jeans. “I know.”
She came over and stood in front of me, hands on hips. “You got taller.”
“Or you got shorter.”
She smirked and held out her hand for me. “Come on, big guy.”
“Where we going?”
“Take a guess.” She led me to the bedroom and left me standing at the foot of the bed. I’d never seen a sweeter sight than a bed that could be mistaken for a cloud.
Tiffany went to her nightstand and opened a drawer. “Condoms, lube, toys.”
“No toys,” I said.
I watched her light a candle on the side table. “This is for ambiance, so don’t get any kinky ideas. I hope you like vanilla.”
I was partial to anything that didn’t smell like mold, shit, or piss. “Are you on the pill?”
“Yes,” she said, then turned to me. “Manning, I’ve got this. I’ve been thinking about tonight for a long time.”
I scrubbed my jaw. If that was the case, she probably wanted this to be special. I guessed that was the reason for the candle. I’d have to rein myself in, because right then, I could’ve fucked until my heart gave out. Or maybe it was like the steak, and slow was better at first.
“Toss me one of those.”
She brought a condom over and put it in my open palm. “I got the extra-large. Wishful thinking, I guess.”
I couldn’t help my laugh. “Careful what you wish for.”
Her eyes lit up. “Really?”
I kissed her. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could wait. She pressed her body up to mine and I put a hand on her ass. When she had my pants down, she pulled back to look down. Her eyes widened. “Holy shit.”
I was hard as a rock, but that wasn’t the reason for her shock. My rock was more of a boulder. Thanks to communal showers, I’d seen more dicks than I ever wanted to, and I knew what I had. My hard-on was painful, and I was ashamed to admit I’d had it since dinner. Tiffany had run her fingernails over my thigh under the table like it was nothing.
Smoking that cigarette was supposed to help, but then Lake had showed up. Something about her bare feet was so sweet, it’d pissed me off. She made my emotions go haywire. One moment it was everything to keep my hands off her, the next I was reacting to her, helpless, and I hated that feeling. I never wanted to give up control again. If I’d never met her, I wouldn’t be in this fucking mess, but I cared too deeply for her to just walk away. It was confusing as hell.
And so was this, my girlfriend stripping down to her black lingerie while I thought about her seventeen-year-old sister. I needed to be more fucking careful. Shouldn’t be thinking about Lake that way at all, and definitely not while I was with Tiffany.
I pushed all thoughts of Lake out of my head and put my hands on Tiffany’s shoulders. “Listen. I’m going to go as slow as a man in my positon can,” I said. “If I get a little too rough, stop me.”
She blinked at me. “Why would I stop you?”
“To put it nicely, I’m eager, Tiff.”
“Manning.” She wrapped her hands on the outsides of my forearms. “I’m not breakable. I’m not like some innocent little virgin who has no experience whatsoever.” I only just grasped the dig at her sister before she pressed on. “Did I expect classical music and roses and lovemaking tonight? No. We can do that later. Right now, I want to be what you need.”
Her words worked their way down my chest, straight to my cock. What I needed was a girl who could take it as good as I gave it. That was Tiffany. Had it been Lake in front of me . . . the filthy things I wanted to do . . .
Overnight she started to change . . .
Was that any way to think about the wide-eyed girl who’d come onto a construction site to thank me for finding her bracelet? She’d been fucking timid and kind and sixteen, and I’d still looked at her and wanted to possess her. That was how I knew I was no good. A decent man would’ve looked at Lake and seen a girl, nothing more.
You don’t know what it’s like to watch a girl become a woman.
I stuck the condom between my teeth, ripped open the foil packet, and spit out the top scrap. I had to be inside Tiffany now. I needed her. I needed to lose myself, set fire to my thoughts. I rolled the condom on.
“How do you want me?” she asked.
My balls tightened as I turned Tiffany around and unhooked her bra, tossing it aside. I took a minute to appreciate what was in front, running my hands over her slender shoulders, over the tiny dark freckles that spotted her back, down her spine.
She shuddered.
I tested her with my finger, and when I found her wet, I nudged my cock between her legs.
She fell forward over the bed, spreading for me. My fucked-up brain saw long blonde hair and smooth back and Lake and I drove into her.
She hissed. “Mmm.”
“Sorry.” My heart pounded. She wasn’t wet enough. Why would she be? I’d done nothing to warm her up. She writhed a little on the mattress, and I only grew harder for her squirming. All those sordid fantasies I’d had about her, now I was living them. I needed to calm the fuck down.
“Babe?” she said.
“
Yeah.”
“Get the lube, okay? It’s in the drawer. Then you can go as hard as you want.”
A sense of gratitude came over me. She could’ve told me to fuck off for going too fast, but she was trying to give me what I needed. I slid out of her and went to the nightstand. While I was there, I peeled off the condom in case I’d broken it. I put a new one on, and turned back to her. I did the best I could in my animal state to make sure she came.
Uncomfortably hot, I woke with a start when I didn’t recognize my surroundings. The sheets were soft and white, and sun came through the slatted blinds, warming up the bedroom. I had no idea when I’d fallen asleep or if Tiffany was by my side or what. In the kitchen, the faucet ran.
I sat up to grab my jeans off the floor and get my cigarettes from the pocket. I lit one and leaned back against the headboard. My head was clear for the first time in months. Maybe years. I shut my eyes and let the nicotine work through me. As soon as I did, I saw her. Lake. Lake, nearly falling at my feet in the foyer.
Physically, she’d changed. Her legs were still too long for her body, but now, she was lithe, not gangly. She had real breasts, ones that were just the right size for her frame. It made me equally uncomfortable and aroused. I liked them, but as they’d never be mine to memorize, to worship, I hated them. I hated the idea of other men looking at them, drooling over them, touching them. I breathed through my nose until the excruciating image passed.
She’d come to a hard stop when she’d noticed me, her lips parted, cheeks flushed. Why? Did I scare her? What would she have done if things’d been different? Leapt into my arms the way her sister had? In that short skirt, she would’ve pressed her heat right against me. Fuck fuck fuck. For what had to be the hundredth time in twenty-four hours, I was getting hard again.
Could I deny it? I wanted Lake. I wanted her bad. I always had, but I’d been able to control it before. She was still young, but she was seventeen now, and every inch the beauty I knew she’d become. She had lush blonde hair that was a little ratty and, like her legs, too long. Her breasts were high and round. For dinner, she’d worn tattered jeans and a t-shirt but why, why the fuck did she still look like the sexiest thing I’d ever seen?
Somebody Else’s Sky: Something in the Way, 2 Page 11